Microsoft seems to be throwing its hat in the image upscale battle that's currently raging between NVIDIA and AMD. The company has added two new job openings to its careers page: one for a Senior Software Engineer and another for a Principal Software Engineer for Graphics. Those job openings would be quite innocent by themselves; however, once we cut through the chaff, it becomes clear that the Senior Software Engineer is expected to "implement machine learning algorithms in graphics software to delight millions of gamers," while working closely with "partners" to develop software for "future machine learning hardware" - partners here could be first-party titles or even the hardware providers themselves (read, AMD). AMD themselves have touted a DirectML upscaling solution back when they first introduced their FidelityFX program - and FSR clearly isn't it.

It is interesting how Microsoft posted these job openings in June 30th - a few days after AMD's reveal of their FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) solution for all graphics cards - and which Microsoft themselves confirmed would be implemented in the Xbox product stack, where applicable. Of course, that there is one solution available already does not mean companies should rest on their laurels - AMD is surely at work on improving its FSR tech as we speak, and Microsoft has seen the advantages on having a pure ML-powered image upscaling solution thanks to NVIDIA's DLSS. Whether Microsoft's solution with DirectML will improve on DLSS as it exists at time of launch (if ever) is, of course, unknowable at this point.

AMD released FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) on June 22nd with support for just 7 games with support for a further 12 games coming soon. The FidelityFX Super Resolution technology is now available in Grand Theft Auto 5 via a mod created by NarutoUA. The mod replaces the game's internal upscaler which means that FSR profiles can be selected by changing the Frame Scaling Mode found in Advanced Graphics Settings. AMD has promised to make the FSR technology open-source however this is yet to have happened so the modder used a precompiled shader binary from a game with native FSR support. You can find a comparison video showing the mod down below. The source code for the mod has been uploaded to GitHub where it can be reviewed and manually compiled.

NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology has been developed to upscale lower resolutions using artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms. By using this technique, users with RTX cards can increase their framerates in supported games, with minimal loss in image quality. Recently, AMD introduced FidelityFX Super Resolution, a competing technology, which in one aspect might be technologically better than the DLSS competition. How you might wonder? Well, at the "quality" setting, NVIDIA's DLSS renders the game at 66.6% of the resolution, upscaling it 1.5 times. At the same "quality" preset, AMD FSR renders the game at 77% of the resolution and upscales the image by 1.3 times. This is technically providing an advantage to AMD FSR technology, as the image is posed to look better with less upscaling. DLSS on the other hand uses much more information, because it considers multiple frames in its temporal algorithm.

That newfound competition could be what made NVIDIA re-think their options and today we are getting some exciting news regarding DLSS. In the Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) documentation, there is a placeholder for "Ultra Quality" DLSS mode, which is supposed to rival AMD's "Ultra Quality" mode and offer the best possible image quality. Currently, the latest DLSS version is 2.2.6.0, which is present in some DLSS supported games, and can be added to others using a DLL-swap. The updated version with the Ultra Quality preset is already present in UE5, called DLSS 2.2.9.0. Mr. Alexander Battaglia from Digital Foundry has made a quick comparison using the two versions, however, we are waiting for more in-depth testing to see the final results.

Just a few days ago, we have reviewed AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution technology, which represents an answer to NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling technology used to upscale images t certain resolutions. As the review predicted, AMD's presence in consoles like PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S must result in the integration of the technology in that field, not only the PC space. And today seems to be the day that Microsoft and AMD join forces to bring AMD's FSR technology to consoles. In the latest Xbox Game Development Kit preview, Microsoft is shipping AMD's FSR tech, giving game developers an easy way to integrate it into the games and thus manipulate resolution to give us the best possible frame rates.

Jason Ronald (Twitter)Excited to continue our close partnership with @AMD and see what game developers can do with FidelityFX Super Resolution, available to preview in our GDK today for @Windows, @Xbox Series X|S and #XboxOne consoles.

AMD's DLSS competitor FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) is going to be launched in a mere five days, on June 22nd. When AMD announced the technology last month, they used Godfall as a showcase for the improved performance characteristics of the technology, which should aid (particularly) in raytracing.enabled games. Being open source, AMD's FSR also supports NVIDIA's graphics cards, meaning that any game that bakes in support for the technology can be taken advantage of by PC players irrespective of GPU brand.

In the meantime, the launch titles for FSR have become known, and there are seven of them, though they're relatively small hitters (Anno 1800 is one of the supported games at launch). However, support for FSR is expected to launch in the near future for 12 more games, including heavy-hitter Baldur's Gate III, DOTA 2, Far Cry 6, Myst, Resident Evil Village and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodhunt. Besides these closer-to-the-horizon games, a number of developers have announced they're working on integration FSR on their workflows, including Crystal Dynamics, Focus Home Interactive, Capcom, Ubisoft, Unity, Electronic Arts & Dice... A total of 44 developers in all, Of course NVIDIA's DLSS supports much more games - but remember it has two years in the market going for it, and remember that DLSS 1.0 wasn't all that good. So comparisons with NVIDIA's solution and claims of failure or disappointment on AMD's technology might be slightly too early judgments, especially considering how this tech has also been announced to be supported by Microsoft's Xbox Series X|S consoles.

Microsoft has recently confirmed that AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) technology will be coming to Xbox Series X/S. The new feature is AMD's response to NVIDIA's DLSS 2.0 AI processing found in RTX series graphics cards. The two technologies both aim to increase frame rates in select titles with various upscaling technologies without a significant reduction in visual quality. AMD boasts compatibility with a wider set of graphics cards including older NVIDIA GTX 10 series cards while also making the technology open-source. AMD will launch FidelityFX Super Resolution for select PC games on June 22nd which will show if they can hope to compete with the well-established DLSS 2.0. Microsoft has confirmed that they will bring the technology to their Xbox Series X/S consoles running custom AMD processors.

MicrosoftAt Xbox, we're excited by the potential of AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution technology as another great method for developers to increase framerates and resolution. We will have more to share on this soon,

AMD finally made a big announcement on its ambitious FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) technology, the company's rival to NVIDIA's popular DLSS. Much like it, FSR aims to significantly improve gaming performance with minimal loss in image quality, through a sophisticated supersampling algorithm. At this point, AMD did not detail the nuts and bolts of the feature, but mentioned how the feature could look to gamers.

There are four FSR presets typically available to a supported game—Ultra Quality, Quality, Balanced, and Performance, which AMD claims offer performance gains of 59% for "Ultra Quality," 102% for "Quality," 153% for "Balanced," and 206% for "Performance." These should come particularly handy when playing games with raytracing on; and were measured on "Godfall" with RX 6800 XT, with 4K "epic" preset, and raytracing enabled. As of now, the company is working with over 10 game studios and game engine developers to integrate FSR, and the technology is expected to support "over 100 CPUs and GPUs."Update Jun 22nd: We have now posted our in-depth review of AMD Radeon FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR).

The FSR slide-deck follows.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), the company's elusive rival to the NVIDIA DLSS technology, could be arriving next month (June 2021), according to a Coreteks report. The report claims that the technology is already at an advanced stage of development, in the hands of game developers, and offers certain advantages over DLSS. For starters, it doesn't require training from a generative adversarial network (GAN), and doesn't rely on ground truth data. It is a low-overhead algorithmic upscaler (not unlike the various MadVR upscalers you're used to). It is implemented early in the pipeline. Here's the real kicker—the technology is compatible with NVIDIA GPUs, so studios developing with FSR would be serving both AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce gamers.

AMD, via its CVP & GM at AMD Radeon Scott Herkelman, confirmed in video with PCWorld that the company's counterpart to NVIDIA's DLSS technology - which he defines as the most important piece of software currently in development from a graphics perspective - is coming along nicely. Launch of the technology is currently planned for later this year. Scott Herkelman further confirmed that there is still a lot of work to do on the technology before it's ready for prime time, but in the meantime, it has an official acronym: FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution). If you're unfamiliar with DLSS, it's essentially an NVIDIA-locked, proprietary upscaling algorithm that has been implemented in a number of games now, which leverages Machine Learning hardware capabilities (tensor cores) to upscale a game with minimal impact to visual quality. It's important because it allows for much higher performance in even the latest, most demanding titles - especially when they implement raytracing.

As has been the case with AMD, its standing on upscaling technologies defends a multiplatform, compatible approach that only demands implementation of open standards to run in users' systems. The idea is to achieve the broadest possible spectrum of game developers and gamers, with tight, seamless integration with the usual game development workflow. This is done mostly via taking advantage of Microsoft's DirectML implementation that's baked straight into DX 12.

TUL Corporation, a leading and innovative manufacturer of AMD graphics cards since 1997, today announced the new PowerColor AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card. Powered by the groundbreaking AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture and featuring AMD Infinity Cache, AMD Smart Access Memory and other advanced technologies, the new graphics card delivers the ultimate in 1440p gaming performance.

The PowerColor AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card is built upon 7 nm process technology and AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, designed to deliver the optimal combination of performance and power efficiency. AMD RDNA 2 based graphics cards are optimized to deliver real-time lighting, shadow and reflection realism with DirectX Raytracing (DXR). When paired with AMD FidelityFX, developers can combine rasterized and ray-traced effects to provide the ideal balance of image quality and gaming performance.

TUL Corporation, a leading and innovative manufacturer of AMD graphic cards since 1997, today brings the highly awarded Red Devil series to the AMD's RADEON RX 6900 XT for enthusiasts who want the ultimate performance with the best gaming experience at all levels. Bringing the best gaming performance with no compromises, PowerColor Red Devil AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT adds extra performance to the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT while running lower at temperatures and quieter, with a high dense heatsink and 7 high performance heat pipes together with a fully customized PCB designed optimized to deliver the best performance while maintaining a cool & quiet operation.

Along with the new cooling system, the Red Devil AMD RADEON RX 6900 XT graphics card has now a totally new redesigned RGB lightning, with immersive look that merges perfectly with the cooling solution as well ARGB connection for the first time total RGB synchronization via motherboard. The PowerColor Red Devil AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card is designed with a powerful VRM configuration, 14+2 phases using the industry's best DrMOS as well as high polymer capacitors allowing greater performance and power stability. With three 8-pin PCIe connectors for maximum reliability and the highest performance, the PowerColor Red Devil is able to deliver up to 480w of power.

Not to be outdone in comparison to almost all other AAA game releases in recent times, Far Cry 6 has recently been delayed from its February 18th release to May 25th 2021. However, that extra time may come to serve the game nicely, in that it may allow for all the planned features to be integrated. As part of AMD's partner showcase, Ubisoft has revealed that Far Cry 6 will make extensive use of DirectX 12 Ultimate features, featuring raytracing, AMD's Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS), Variable Rate Shading (VRS), as well as Hybrid SSR (Stochastic Screen Space Reflections).

Ubisoft's head of 3D programming Oleksandr Polishchuk had this to say: "We were very impressed with the latest AMD technologies and joined forces to bring FidelityFX CAS, DXR raytracing and Variable Rate Shading to Far Cry 6. We are working together to ensure a smooth 4K viewing experience. This requires a lot of bandwidth, memory, and a Radeon RX 6000 with Infinity Cache that can handle it easily while maintaining high FPS rates." Check out the AMD partner showcase video below.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today announces the launch of AMD Radeon RX 6800-series of graphics cards. Powered by AMD's new RDNA2 architecture, the latest RX 6800 series graphic cards are tailor made to run AAA games delivering ultra-high frame rates on a crisp 4K resolution gaming experience. Coming out in 2 models, the RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT graphics cards are designed to be the best in the market with power to outperform its rivals with BIOSTAR's signature product durability.

The RX 6800 XT is the high-grade model of the two RX 6800 series graphics cards. With 72 powerfully enhanced compute units, 128 MB of all new AMD infinity cache technology, 16 GB of dedicated GDDR6 memory, a boost-clock speed of up to 2250 MHz on a TDP of 300 W, the new RX 6800 XT surely packs a serious punch when it comes to raw performance in any use case.

AMD is launching their next-generation RX 6800 series of graphics cards on November 18th, these will be the first cards from AMD featuring the new RDNA 2 architecture. To coincide with the launch of RDNA 2 in consumer graphics cards AMD is launching a new tech demo titled "Hangar 21", the new demonstration will highlight the power of RDNA 2 with real-time raytracing effects enabled by AMD FidelityFX and Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate. The "Hangar 21" tech demo will be launching on November 19th and you can view a short trailer of the tech demo down below.

AMDComing November 19, the "Hangar 21" Technology Demo Video will let you see the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture in action, the foundation of the AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards that power the next generation of gaming with mind-blowing visuals featuring realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections enabled by AMD FidelityFX and Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate.

As part of its road towards release of their Radeon RX 6000 series, AMD has posted a video showcasing the raytracing effects that are being baked into World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. This comes as a result of a strategic partnership between the two companies. World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will be making use of AMD's FidelityFX Ambient Occlusion, where Blizzard says they were able to achieve "(...)a perfect balance between quality and performance..." which allowed them to achieve "(...)a significant performance advantage over our previous ambient occlusion applications."

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will also be making use of DXR Raytracing technology as well as Variable Rate Shading (VRS). Raytracing is being used to calculate light interactions between light sources, objects and characters on the screen, while VRS will enable the game to reduce shading resolution on areas closer to the corners of the frame, or in fast-moving objects, where detail would be lost either way, to achieve higher frame rates. The higher the resolution, the more impactful the benefits of VRS. So it seems that Blizzard has decided to implement two performance-increasing and one performance-decreasing features available from the DXR repository. Catch the video explaining these features and showcasing their implementation after the break.

TUL Corporation, a leading and innovative manufacturer of AMD graphic cards since 1997, is tackling today the high end gaming market with its new RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 based on the AMD's RDNA2 architecture and with 16Gb of GDDR6, PowerColor RX6800 stakes gaming to a new level of visual immersion and graphics performance.

AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture was designed to deliver the optimal combination of performance and power efficiency. AMD RDNA 2 architecture is the next generation enthusiast gaming platforms. Designed for the most demanding gaming enthusiasts looking to game on the highest possible settings PowerColor RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 come with boost clock up to 2250 MHz and 2105 MHz respectively and makes use of 16 GB of ultra-fast GDDR6 for no performance compromises.

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) today unveiled the AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards, delivering powerhouse performance, incredibly life-like visuals, and must-have features that set a new standard for enthusiast-class PC gaming experiences. Representing the forefront of extreme engineering and design, the highly anticipated AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series includes the AMD Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics cards, as well as the new flagship Radeon RX 6900 XT - the fastest AMD gaming graphics card ever developed.

AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards are built upon groundbreaking AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, a new foundation for next-generation consoles, PCs, laptops and mobile devices, designed to deliver the optimal combination of performance and power efficiency. AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture provides up to 2X higher performance in select titles with the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card compared to the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card built on AMD RDNA architecture, and up to 54 percent more performance-per-watt when comparing the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card to the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card using the same 7 nm process technology.

AMD today via its newly released GPUOpen website has announced that it is adding four new graphics technologies to its FidelityFX software stack. Before you ask, no; there is no included Ray Tracing graphics libraries among these four new technologies. However, considering the use-case for these is to give developers an almost plug-in flexibility on various graphics technologies they would otherwise have to find other ways to integrate in their rendering pass, added layers to GPUOpen are always a welcome sight. And rest assured that "classic" shading techniques will still be widely used even in the advent of top to bottom raytracing capabilities on graphics hardware - which likely won't happen in the next GPU hardware generation anyway.

Added technologies to the previously-released Contrast Adaptive Sharpening are libraries for SSSR (Stochastic Screen Space Reflections) for better reflections without the usage of raytracing; CACAO (Combined Adaptive Compute Ambient Occlusion) for added depth to shadows and object quality; LPM (Luminance Preserving Mapper) for eased application of an HDR rendering pipeline with correct values, preventing overblown details; and SPD (Single Pass Downsampler) which will allow developers to seamlessly downsample required assets (think something along the lines of Variable Rate Shading) to achieve FPS targets. The GPUOpen is an effort from AMD to create an open graphics library that will allow developers to easily integrate AMD-optimized technologies to their graphics workflow.

TUL Corporation, parent of the leading and innovative AMD Graphics Card Manufacturing brand, PowerColor, announces their latest cards in their lineup, PowerColor Red Dragon RX 5500 XT 8 GB and PowerColor RX 5500 XT 4 GB. Powered by the the newest and most advanced 7 nm RDNA architecture with GDDR6 VRAM, the RX 5500 series features performance delivery optimized for better visuals such as volumetric lighting, motion blurring effects, depth of field, and multi-level cache hierarchy for reduced latency and a highly responsive gaming experience.

PowerColor's newest RX 5500 XT series is a perfect match for 1080p gaming, reaching 60 FPS on AAA gaming titles on high graphics settings, and over 90 FPS on the leading e-sports titles. AMD's newest lineup of features on their Radeon Graphics Drivers enhances the experience further with settings such as Radeon Image Sharpening and FidelityFX for maximum performance and insane immersive gaming experiences as well Radeon Anti-Lag for highly responsive gaming.

"Shadow of the Tomb Raider" received support for AMD FidelityFX through a patch. The latest Patch 18 update adds the FidelityFX toggle, letting you improve frame-rates by slightly reducing resolution-scale, resulting in higher frame-rates, and compensating for the image quality loss with the image-sharpening feature. NVIDIA GeForce users still have the option to use the Image Sharpening toggle in NVIDIA Control Panel introduced with GeForce R440 drivers. The patch also removes the restriction on character outfits when exploring the Hidden City location in game.

Today, AMD announced the Radeon RX 5500 series graphics products, harnessing groundbreaking RDNA gaming architecture to deliver the ultimate in high-performance, high-fidelity 1080p gaming. The AMD Radeon RX 5500 series includes the Radeon RX 5500 graphics card that will be available in desktop PCs from leading manufacturers and graphics cards from board partners, as well as the Radeon RX 5500M GPU for notebook PCs. Top system providers worldwide are embracing the new products, with HP and Lenovo planning to offer Radeon RX 5500 graphics cards in their high performance desktop gaming PCs beginning this November, and Acer planning to offer systems with the cards beginning this December. In addition, later this month MSI is expected to launch the world's first gaming notebook powered by AMD Ryzen processors and Radeon RX 5500M GPUs.

"Based on feedback and insights from global gaming communities, gamers rank graphics as the most critical component for speed and performance," said Johnson Jia, senior vice president and general manager, Consumer Business of Intelligent Devices Group, Lenovo. "That's why the Lenovo Legion T730 and T530 gaming towers and the IdeaCentre T540 Gaming desktop pack in AMD's latest Radeon RX graphics - satisfying players' need for high-fidelity visuals and lightning-fast frame-rates to fully immerse into their gameplay." "MSI Alpha 15 is a new chapter for us, and we're excited to partner with AMD to combine the latest 7 nm technology found in the Radeon RX 5500M GPU and MSI's gaming DNA for our gamers," said Charles Chiang, CEO of MSI.

Gears 5, the next upcoming installment in the Gears of War series of video games, is launching this September 10th. In anticipation, developer The Coalition has announced the games' close partnership development with AMD, optimizing it for the company's cadre of GPU and CPU solutions. The game will make extensive use of Asynchronous Compute - one of AMD's most relevant technologies in gaining the upper hand against NVIDIA on performance terms. According to the developer, post-processing effects are being run exclusively on Asynchronous Compute, which means that the games' rendering is being run as close to a clockwork as possible. FidelityFX also makes an appearance again, as one of the latest AMD technologies for improving visual fidelity and sharpness. Multithreaded Command Buffering is the technical implementation for a system that improves AMD's Ryzen CPUs' processing of the game, specifically geared towards taking advantage of that CPU architecture's strong points.

The game seems to be a pretty scalable affair, with minimum requirements making do with just 2 GB of VRAM and an AMD RX 560 or NVIDIA GTX 1050. The ideal system requirements, however, call for a much beefier setup, with an AMD Radeon VII or NVIDIA RTX 2080 being called for, including 16 GB of system memory and a whopping 100 GB+ install footprint - preferably on an SSD. The game, like Gears of War 4, has been developed with the PC market in mind - there are more than 35 different graphical options for users to tweak. Here's hoping the games' writing is as much a technical achievement as its engine development seems to be.